The Multiversal Adventures of Animal-themed Dorks
by Kalcifier
Summary: A collection of fills for Freeruka Week 2016. Features copious amounts of silliness.
1. Day 1: Mythology

It was one of the lesser-known aspects of being a witch that your powers were linked to the common perception of your familiar. It was widely agreed that this was a good thing – while there were always the lucky bastards whose familiars were tigers or something, there was only so much one could do with the relative powers of a rabbit.

Eruka had made considerable use of this herself. She'd come of age in a time when frogs were commonly associated with evil and witchcraft, which gave her access to a number of fun spells and techniques. She liked to think that for a while, she'd been one of the most powerful witches in the world.

Then the Renaissance happened, and people became much less superstitious. Over time, the common image of frogs became cutesy and harmless.

It was kind of disappointing, but it was bound to happen sooner or later. Besides, Eruka could work with cute. She herself was positively adorable, and that wasn't even getting into how cute Tadpole Jackson was. And at least people kept the whole "metamorphosis" thing in mind, so Eruka never had a problem transforming.

Not that she would rely on a set of powers that was likely to change anyway. She'd been smart enough to recognize the drawbacks long ago, and had made a point of studying a few fields of magic the hard way, just in case. Her mathematical skills weren't just for show, after all.

The point was that Eruka was content with her power set as it was. She kind of missed being able to do anything that was even remotely considered witchy, but she got by well enough. (No, the Medusa thing didn't count. Medusa was scary entirely separate from the public image of snakes.)

And that was why she was entirely blindsided when Free called her over to the computer.

She was just minding her own business, reading one of her old spellbooks and feeling nostalgic. She didn't actually have the power to cast half the spells anymore, at least not on her own, but she could at least stay on top of them just in case.

Free was on the couch in her living room, reading something on his laptop. She didn't know how he even got service in her cottage, since she lived as far from human communities as she could manage, but that didn't stop him from wasting hours on the "Facebook". Apparently he'd ingratiated himself with a group of middle aged women who would periodically send him images with humorous captions. She had no idea why he enjoyed it so much, but at least it got him out of her hair.

Or it had, until she heard him wheezing so hard she thought he might be suffocating. She stood up, planning to fulfill her own curiosity about what could possibly suffocate an immortal werewolf, but hadn't brought herself to go look by the time he called her over. "You've got to see what Doreen just posted!" he said.

Against her own better judgment, she sat down next to him. She wasn't sure quite what she was going to see – Free had been into these strange yellow lumps for a while, so maybe it would be one of those.

She certainly wasn't prepared for the abomination that confronted her.

It was labelled as a frog, but that was an insult to amphibians everywhere. The creature before her was hardly more than an amorphous green blob in a blue shirt. Its lips were a horrifying shade of red, which was almost enough to distract her from the fact that it had lips in the first place.

It was looking down dejectedly. Good, Eruka thought. Such an insult to the noble name of frog deserved nothing but misery and pain. For that matter, so did the person who inflicted it on her.

But when she looked up Free was still chuckling to himself, watching her to see what she thought. She softened, albeit minutely. She'd have to settle for the next best thing. "You said it was Doreen who showed you this crime against frogdom?"

Free nodded. "She's such a wild card," he said.

"And where does this Doreen live?"

Free's eyes widened as he caught on to her plans. "Wait, no, I don't know what you're planning but it's not good. Is it really worth violating the treaty for a meme?"

"I'm sure Death will understand," she said, putting on her best hat. "This is clearly a declaration of war."

Free groaned. "I hate having to be the voice of reason, you know I suck at it."

"Exactly, so don't bother." Eruka glanced at herself in the mirror, making sure she looked adequately sinister. "Now if you'll excuse me, I have a mission."

She stormed out the door. She wasn't sure quite where she was going, but someone was going to pay for this.


	2. Day 2: Immortal

He didn't mean to brag, but Free kicked ass at Assassin. The game had been running for a week and he'd already killed three people. Sure, one of them had turned out not to be his target, but that was beside the point.

After all, he was immortal!

He started laughing, which made people look at him askance. Just because his laugh happened to sound maniacal…

Shit, right, he was trying to be subtle. He cut himself off and went back to blending in. He was on a mission, after all. His target had just passed through, and he was itching to get another kill. Admittedly, he had no idea where he was anymore, but he could worry about that later.

More pressingly, he seemed to have lost his target. Come on, he thought, how hard can it be to find a dude with bright blue hair?

He was considering climbing a wall to get a better view of the area when he was approached by a girl with silvery hair. Her makeup was a little weird, but she was undeniably cute. He grinned at her.

She seemed completely unimpressed, which wow, okay. Ignore his attempts to be charming. "You're Free, right?" she asked flatly.

Ah, she'd heard of him. His grin widened. "That's me, all right!"

She nodded. "Good." She pointed at him, thumb extended. "In that case, your ass is grass and I'm the lawnmower."

He gaped at her. "What… But… I'm immortal!"

She smirked, and okay, he kind of got the makeup now. "Evidently not. Now then, who was your target? I've only got an hour until my next class, and I want to make it count."

Oh right, his target. The one who was getting away as they spoke. "Shit!" He grabbed the girl's arm and started running, ignoring her indignant yelp. "If we hurry, we can still catch him!"

"I don't even know who we're looking for!" She made no effort to free herself from his grasp, though, so Free figured it was probably fine.

(They ended up horribly lost, and she was definitely going to be late for class. But she got her target, and he got her number, so it's not like he particularly cared.)


	3. Day 3: Wicked

If you'd asked her before, Eruka would proudly have proclaimed herself a Wicked Witch™. She caused mischief, maybe wrought a little havoc, and generally had a good time at the expense of the human population.

Now, of course, the witches were allied with the DWMA, so there were no wicked witches. There were, however, Traitorous Witches™. And while Eruka was no longer under a death sentence, she was having trouble getting rid of the label. For obvious reasons, this made spending time in the witch community less appealing.

But as a former wicked witch, living in the human world was out of the question. Even if she could tolerate the humans around her, it would be an affront to her dignity.

So as much as Eruka would have liked to go back to hiding in a bog somewhere, she had resigned herself to the fact that she'd need to move. And sadly, the only place that seemed even remotely tolerable was Death City.

After all, the DWMA had already proven its unwillingness to execute her, and even with the alliance most witches wouldn't want to spend time in the city. Meanwhile, the citizens were used to the supernatural, but still wary of witches, so they wouldn't bother her.

She wept for what the desert air was going to do to her skin, but she couldn't exactly afford to be picky.

At least she was finally going to have her own space again. She'd considered inviting the Mizunes to join her, but they were doing much better than her. Something about not allying with the DWMA. Eruka found it grossly unfair, but after getting their elder sister killed she wasn't exactly going to complain about fairness.

So she was getting some time to herself, and for the first twelve hours it was amazing. She'd managed to get moved in pretty easily with some help from Tadpole Jackson, and while there were still boxes strewn around she was taking the opportunity to flop around and do nothing for a little bit.

She would have been content to keep doing so forever, or at least for the next week, but she was rudely interrupted by a knock on the door. Honestly, though, calling it a knock was putting it nicely. It sounded like someone was doing a halfhearted job of trying to break her door down.

She summoned some tadpole bombs as she crept to the door. After all, she had no guarantee that it wasn't some death child overachiever trying to get rid of a threat. Worse, it could be a door to door salesman.

However, the face that greeted her when she opened the door was a familiar one. Far too familiar for her tastes, really. It was set in a goofy grin that only widened when its owner registered her appearance. "Eruka!" Free yelled, and enveloped her in a hug.

It took her a moment to push away, but that was only because she wasn't expecting it. She certainly didn't want to hug him. Besides, she had a much more pressing concern. "What are you doing here?" she asked, playing with her bombs in a way she hoped looked menacing. (So she was a little rusty at this wicked witch thing. Whatever. It's not like it was anyone important anyway.)

"Well, I had gone out to travel the world, but that got boring really quickly. It turns out there's a lot of sand. So then I decided, I should go find my best friend Eruka! It took me a little while to find you, but fortunately I hadn't gone far." He gestured wildly, somehow encompassing both of them and the situation they were in. "And here I am!"

Eruka slammed the door in his face. Really, she thought, he ought to be glad that she didn't sic her bombs on him. She would totally have done it, but she was feeling generous. It was a strictly temporary thing, though.

She most definitely did not let him in twenty minutes later.


	4. Day 5: Haunted

(There is no Day 4 in Ba Sing Se.)

* * *

Free hadn't exactly been up to date on human culture even before the locked-in-Witch-Jail-for-two-centuries thing. And back then, it hadn't really been an issue beyond worrying about whether people were going to chase him down with pitchforks. That was never a good way to start a day.

For the most part, Free was content to learn about things as they came up. If you waited long enough, most of them stopped mattering. (This was one of his best strategies for dealing with his problems, really.)

But every now and then, he encountered a human idea that was actually worth exploring. It was bound to happen because of statistics, or something.

It was because of one of these discoveries that he was currently lined up in front of a suburban house, accompanied by an unimpressed Eruka. "Remind me why we're here, again?"

"The wait is part of the fun! You have to let the excitement build." He bounced on the balls of his feet. "Are you scared yet?"

"No," she said flatly. "And that wasn't what I meant and you know it. What are we doing at this miserable human excuse for a haunted house?"

"We're here to get scared, of course." He made his best puppy face that didn't involve actually becoming a canine. "It's been so long since I had a proper Halloween."

"You do realize we've been face to face with an actual embodiment of fear, right?" She crossed her arms but didn't pursue the subject. Free chose to interpret this as her realizing how awesome this was going to be.

The line crept closer to the house, Eruka occasionally making snide comments about the decorations. "They're totally stereotyping witches," she said at one point, conveniently ignoring the fact that she owned a hat just like the one she was complaining about.

Privately, Free had to agree with her. The decorations were incredibly cheesy, and the house clearly had not been designed with magical beings in mine. But that didn't matter, because he had ulterior motives!

That's right, he was being sneaky. Just another of his hidden talents.

The point was, he was lulling her into a false sense of security. They'd laugh at the ridiculous attempts to frighten them, possibly show some of the attendants what real monsters were like. Then, when she wasn't expecting it, he was going to transform and scare her! It was the perfect plan.

Admittedly, the inside of the house was slightly darker than he expected. Not that it mattered to him, because he did have a magic eye, but Eruka might miss the full effect. For that matter, the space was much smaller than he'd expected. He kept having to duck to avoid dangling spiders, and that was before he transformed.

He was so busy trying to figure out the logistics of the space that he was completely unprepared for the first actor to jump out.

… He may have yelped and grabbed for Eruka. Unfortunately, he wasn't exactly paying attention to what he was doing, and ended up grabbing her around the neck. This of course startled her, and she jumped a foot into the air. They ended up with Eruka dangling awkwardly from Free's arm, both feeling silly. The actor who'd startled them nowhere in sight, which was probably the best thing for his future wellbeing.

Needless to say, that kind of put a damper on Free's plans for the evening. He was having trouble feeling enthusiastic about scaring her after that embarrassment, and besides, she'd probably hex him into next week. They made it through the rest of the house in silence, tacitly agreeing not to speak of this again.

And that would probably have been the end of it, had they not exited the house to find the least flattering photo of them possible up on a screen with the caption "I survived Death House… Barely"

It wasn't the first time she'd threatened to have Tadpole Jackson take his side of the bed, but it was the first time she'd gone through with it.


End file.
